Panasonic’s Human Blinkers basically contradict themselves

This extreme dystopia alert comes courtesy Panasonic. The blinkers you see above and below were designed by the company, allegedly to combat the distractions involved with open workspaces. Preferring a more compartmentalized office space, Panasonic’s design studio (titled Future Life Factory) partnered with Japanese designer Kunihiko Morinaga to create the Wear Space, a literal pair of blinkers to help cut out external buzz and distractions and get you to focus on your work in front of you by reducing your peripheral vision by 60%.

The idea, Panasonic says, is to allow employees to find their place of zen in an open workspace. However, the blinkers are designed to zero your vision on a screen, the very item most companies are trying to get you to look away from. The screen, be it the one in your workspace, or the one on your phone, can be an absolute attention grabber in its own right, and the open workspace was created to combat this very problem of being too absorbed by the wall of pixels in front of you. Open workspaces promote social interaction, often relieving your eyes and mind from the adverse effect of ‘too much screen time’. Panasonic believes that the users of the Wear Space will wear these blinkers of their own accord, in an attempt to focus. However, the blinkers seem like a step backward in forcing compartmentalization in the workspace (probably even defeating the purpose of allowing you to focus on your work by making you and your headgear the subject of everyone’s attention). Call me a skeptic, but I think screens are addictive enough… and if you still find yourself unable to focus, a good pair of noise-canceling headphones should definitely do the trick.